Marc Olszewski with Steve De Piante @ the Sky Dragon Centre 2/28/09

[TimmyB]

This past Saturday I was witness to something that unfortunately does not happen too often, my good friend Marc Olszewski played a gig.

The last time I remember seeing Marc perform in front of a crowd that was not at his place or in front of a campfire was playing with Todd Gillies of the Fat Cats at Pepper Jack Cafe a year or maybe two ago. This time Marc performed across the street from Pepper Jack's at the Sky Dragon Centre on King William Street in Hamilton opening for Louise Kent.

Marc shared the stage with another good friend, former bassist of the now defunct What the Thunder Said Steve Vincent De Piante. This time Steve strapped on an acoustic guitar instead of a bass. Steve told me that it was the first time he played to a crowd with a guitar in five years and he did well playing rhythm guitar with some lead at points throughout the night. Though for those who do not know Steve might have thought he was Jazy Z, Hugo Boss or even RuPaul as those were some of the names Marc introduced Steve as in between the songs. I thought Marc went a little too far with the RuPaul introduction, but it did get a laugh from the crowd.

The set began with three songs penned by Marc entitled "Easy Does It," "Water Walker," and "Let it Go." All three songs which Marc said were written in the last few months were well developed lyrically and musically with some excellent guitar work.

Next was "May You Never" a song by the British singer-songwriter John Martyn who recently passed away (d. January 29, 2009). Marc and Steve did a justice of one of Martyn's most well known songs, it was a song covered by Eric Clapton and it ended up on the 1977 classic 'Slowhand.' Whether it was or not it felt like a tribute to the late Martyn though Marc did mention how he was moved to play it by a recent performance of the song by Steve Sinnicks.

Steve took the spotlight with the next number which was his own entitled "the Reason." It was a good song that he said he wrote for his sister for her wedding.

To close the set Marc and Steve went with a classic that was well suited to be performed at the Sky Dragon Centre, Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock." Without introducing the song it began with an acoustic Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young intro, that sounded more like an acoustic intro to the Byrds "Eight Miles High," once the words came the song became clear to all.

I do not know Louise Kent material, though I was impressed by her song "Hero Girl." She was a way more positive version of Ani Difranco. She performed solo and was also backed by her brother Fraser on keyboards who is another former member of What the Thunder Said. They also covered John Lennon's "Imagine," Stars "Calendar Girl," Cindy Lauper's "Time after Time," and "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" the Cheers theme song where there was a sing-a-long.

It was a great night and I hope to see something like it again sooner rather than later.

Peace,

Tim

Edited March 4, 2009 by Guest

[Booche]

[Schwa.]

Glad it was a good show for ya MarcO!! Keep rockin'!

[mark tonin]

A nice review TimmyB ... thanks for sharing. I hope to be able to catch MarcO and Deeps playing music together at some point in the future.

Peace, Mark

[Booche]

I just fell off my chair!